Indigenous Property

🥷 Caselaw.Ninja, Riverview Group Publishing 2025 ©
Date Retrieved:	2025-05-09
CLNP Page ID:	2497
Page Categories:	Indigenous
Citation:	Indigenous Property, CLNP 2497, <https://rvt.link/fh>, retrieved on 2025-05-09
Editor:	MKent
Last Updated:	2025/05/01

Indian Act (R.S.C., 1985, c. I-5)

90 (1) For the purposes of sections 87 and 89, personal property that was

(a) purchased by Her Majesty with Indian moneys or moneys appropriated by Parliament for the use and benefit of Indians or bands, or

(b) given to Indians or to a band under a treaty or agreement between a band and Her Majesty,

shall be deemed always to be situated on a reserve.

Restriction on transfer

(2) Every transaction purporting to pass title to any property that is by this section deemed to be situated on a reserve, or any interest in such property, is void unless the transaction is entered into with the consent of the Minister or is entered into between members of a band or between the band and a member thereof.

Destruction of property

(3) Every person who enters into any transaction that is void by virtue of subsection (2) is guilty of an offence, and every person who, without the written consent of the Minister, destroys personal property that is by this section deemed to be situated on a reserve is guilty of an offence.

Mitchell v. Peguis Indian Band, 1990 CanLII 117 (SCC), [1990] 2 SCR 85

I cannot accept that the comments in Nowegijick were implicitly limited in this way. The Nowegijick principles must be understood in the context of this Court's sensitivity to the historical and continuing status of aboriginal peoples in Canadian society. The above‑quoted statement is clearly concerned with interpreting a statute or treaty with respect to the persons who are its subjects -- Indians -- not with interpreting a statute in favour of Indians simply because it is the State that is the other interested party. It is Canadian society at large which bears the historical burden of the current situation of native peoples and, as a result, the liberal interpretive approach applies to any statute relating to Indians, even if the relationship thereby affected is a private one. Underlying Nowegijick is an appreciation of societal responsibility and a concern with remedying disadvantage, if only in the somewhat marginal context of treaty and statutory interpretation.

<ref name="Mitchell>